Category Archives: Constitution

UCLA Berkeley receives an estimated $500 million a year from Federal dollars…

Notice that Janet Napolitano has not said a word… she is in her own scandal.

University of California President Janet Napolitano is considering a potentially sweeping overhaul of her office in the wake of sharp political criticism over its size, cost, and budget practices.

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President Trump intends to sign an executive order that would put at risk federal research funding to colleges and universities that fail to protect free speech on campus, he announced Saturday.

“Today I am proud to announce that I will be very soon signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research dollars,” the president said during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md.

“If they want our dollars, and we give it to them by the billions, they’ve got to allow people like Hayden and many other great young people and old people, to speak, free speech,” said Trump. “If they don’t, it will be very costly. That will be signed very soon.”

The specific details of Trump’s executive order are unknown.

The president’s announcement came after he brought on stage Hayden Williams, a conservative activist with Turning Point USA who was punched in the face Feb. 19 at the University of California, Berkeley.

Campus police on Saturday arrested Zachary Greenberg, who allegedly was behind the attack on Williams. Bail for Greenberg, 28, was set at $30,000.

Trump joked that Williams “could take a punch” and urged him to sue not only Greenberg “forever,” but also the University of California, Berkeley.

“He took a hard punch in the face for all of us, remember that,” Trump said. “He took a punch for all of us, and we can never allow that to happen. And in closing with Hayden, here is the good news: He is going to be a very wealthy young man.”

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24/7 Wall St. reviewed federally funded research and development grants and Pell Grant disbursements for recipients of financial aid in 1,871 major universities. Johns Hopkins University received nearly $2 billion from the U.S. government in 2015, more than double second-place University of Washington. Yale University rounds out the top 20, receiving approximately $480 million in federal funds in 2015.

Funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services comprised the largest share of federal grants of any federal agency in 16 of the 20 universities. The principal funding source of the remaining four institutions — Johns Hopkins University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — is the Department of Defense.

In addition to research funding, Government funding also includes need-based grants to undergraduates awarded through the Federal Pell Grant Program. While across all universities Pell Grant aid totaled $30.6 billion in the 2014-15 school year — on par with the value of research grants — these funds are much more evenly distributed across U.S. universities. Financial aid is generally dwarfed by the size of the federal research grants at these 20 institutions.

To identify the universities receiving the most federal funding, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the latest government data for 1,871 major universities. To determine total federal funds for each institution, we combined federal R&D funding for the 2015 fiscal year from the National Science Foundation, and Pell Grant disbursements for the 2014-15 school year from the U.S Department of Education. Go here to see where the universities rank on receiving Federal dollars.

Central to the silly arguments made by the “Convention of States Project” (COSP) is their claim that 200 years of Supreme Court opinions have increased the powers of the federal government (as well as legalized practices such as abortion); that all these opinions are “the Law of the Land”; and we need an Article V convention so we can get amendments to the Constitution which take away all these powers the Supreme Court gave the federal government.

But the text of Article V contradicts COSP’s claim. Article V shows that our Constitution can be amended only when three-fourths of the States ratify proposed amendments. The Supreme Court has no power to amend our Constitution. And it’s impossible for an amendment to take away powers our Constitution doesn’t grant.

1. First Principles

Let’s analyze COSP’s silly argument. We begin by looking at First Principles:

The Judicial Branch was created by Art. III, §1, US Constitution. Accordingly, it is a “creature” of the Constitution. 1

The federal government came into existence when the States, acting through special ratifying conventions held in each of the States, ratified the Constitution.2

Since the Judicial Branch is merely a “creature” of the Constitution, it follows that it is subordinate to the Constitution, and is completely subject to its terms. It may not annul the superior authority of the States which created the Judicial Branch when they ratified the Constitution; 3 and as a mere “creature” of the Constitution, it may NOT change the Constitution under which it holds its existence! 4

One of the sites I visit daily is Far Left Watch. They report on real news fearlessly. And they’ve got another scoop on Antifa and Facebook.

As all of you know by now, Facebook purged many conservatives including myself just recently. This included Brian Kolfage, a triple amputee veteran who ran Right Wing News. I was an editor and writer there. Because of that, NoisyRoom.net and my personal page were both purged permanently. Brian’s personal military coffee business was also purged. Facebook gave me no reason other than they stated that I violated their community standards. They called Right Wing News ‘inauthentic’ and labeled them ‘fake news’. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I source what I write with multiple links of attribution whenever I write. It’s sheer political censorship.

We aren’t alone by any means. Gavin McInnes, who had multiple accounts associated with the “Proud Boys,” was banned by Facebook who stated that those accounts were “hate groups” and violated their policies on “hate speech.” Which is unadulterated bull crap.

Communist Antifa is certainly guilty of that level of hatred and more. Yet, somehow, they are still on Facebook. Communists of a feather. These are accounts that call for the murder of President Trump and conservatives on a regular basis. They brazenly use their Facebook pages to radicalize, recruit, and mobilize new members. They are incredibly hateful and violent.

One recent example that demonstrates this double standard is the failure of Facebook to take action against the violent far-left extremist group, Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement. Just last week, this Antifa group shared an “anti-gentrification” poster that encouraged people to burn down luxury housing developments. They instructed their five thousand Facebook followers to print this poster and spread it around.

This is the same extremist group that used their Facebook and Twitter account to coordinate a nationwide campaign to deface Christopher Columbus statues and then used those same accounts to share pictures and brag about their criminal activity once the campaign was executed. But like most violent far-left accounts, they are free to violate Facebook and Twitter Terms of Service without any recourse. At what point should this selective enforcement be viewed as an endorsement of far-left political violence?

I guess as long as you are a leftist, you can do whatever you want on Facebook. Stand up for the Constitution, President Trump, the rule of law and anti-communism and you are branded as a non-person and shunned. But that won’t shut us up or keep us from fighting back against communists like Antifa. It does, however, show what a hypocrite Facebook is. This isn’t about left or right, it’s about fighting communism for me and others like me out there.

If you want to fight for free speech, you can go here to support Brian Kolfage’s fight against Facebook. If we don’t fight for our constitutional right to free speech, we will lose it entirely and soon.

1865-1867, it was a time of reconstruction. For context, scan this summary of the activity of Congress.

On the matter of ratification of the 14th Amendment, a year-long study was completed by a 15 member committee. Much of the debate was on citizenship for slaves. For reference, the Joint Resolution was H.R. 127.

One of the silliest of the many unsupported claims made by those lobbying for an Article V convention is that our Framers said that when the federal government violates the Constitution, the remedy is to amend the Constitution.1

It shouldn’t be necessary to point out that their claim makes as much sense as saying that since people violate the Ten Commandments, God should amend the Ten Commandments.2

And since none of our Framers said such a silly thing, the convention lobby can’t produce a quote where it was said.

Even so, some have believed it and repeated it to others. Americans! We must demand that people prove their claims before we believe what they tell us.

I will show you original source documents, and you can see for yourself what our Framers really said about the purpose of amendments to our Constitution.

Madison’s Journal of the Federal Convention of 1787

James Madison was a delegate to the federal convention of 1787 where our present Constitution was drafted. He kept a daily Journal. I went through it, collected every reference to what became Article V, and wrote it up – here it is.

Madison’s Journal shows what our Framers said at the convention about the purpose of amendments to our Constitution:

Elbridge Gerry said on June 5, 1787: the “novelty & difficulty of the experiment requires periodical revision.”

George Mason said on June 11, 1787: The Constitution now being formed “will certainly be defective,” as the Articles of Confederation have been found to be. “Amendments therefore will be necessary, and it will be better to provide for them, in an easy, regular and Constitutional way than to trust to chance and violence. It would be improper to require the consent of the Natl. Legislature, because they may abuse their power, and refuse their consent…The opportunity for such an abuse, may be the fault of the Constitution [i.e., a defect] calling for amendmt.” [boldface mine] 3

In Federalist No. 43 at 8, Madison said the purpose of amendments to the Constitution is to repair “discovered faults” and “amendment of errors”; and “amendment of errors” and “useful alterations” would be suggested by experience.

In Federalist No. 85 (13th para), Hamilton said useful amendments would address the “organization of the government, not…the mass of its powers” 5

Throughout Federalist No. 49, Madison warned against a convention for proposing amendments, and showed that a convention is neither proper nor effective to restrain government when it encroaches.

“Should the provisions of the Constitution as here reviewed be found not to secure the Govt. & rights of the States agst. usurpations & abuses on the part of the U.S…” (p. 398)

So he is talking about provisions – defects – in the Constitution which permit the federal government to abuse the States. He goes on to say:

“…the final resort within the purview of the Constn. lies in an amendment of the Constn…” 6

So he’s saying that when a defect inthe Constitution exposes the States to abuses by the federal government, the remedy is to amend the Constitution.

To fully grasp Madison’s point, we must look at his letter in its historical context of the Tariff Act of 1828: The southern states bought manufactured goods from England. England bought southern cotton. But infant industries in the Northeast couldn’t compete with the English imports. So during 1828, Congress passed a Tariff Act which imposed such high tariffs on English imports that the southern states could no longer buy them. England stopped buying southern cotton. This devastated the southern economy. So South Carolina wanted to nullify the Tariff Act (the “Tariff of Abominations”); and developed a theory that a State had a “constitutional right” to nullify any federal law, and the nullification would be presumed valid, unless three-fourths of the States said it wasn’t valid.

Madison opposed South Carolina’s theory because the Tariff Act was constitutional – it was authorized by Art. I, §8, cl. 1, US Constitution. States can’t nullify a constitutional law! 7

But while the Tariff Act was constitutional, it was abusive: Article I, §8, cl. 1 was being used to benefit infant industries in the Northeast at the expense of the southern states. 8

So what’s the remedy “within the purview of the Constitution” for the Tariff Act of 1828? Madison doesn’t spell it out – but obviously Art. I, §8, cl. 1 could be amended to say that Congress may impose tariffs only to raise revenue to carry out the enumerated powers; and may not impose tariffs in order to benefit domestic industries, or to benefit one section of the Country at the expense of other sections.9

In his Address, Washington warns that we must require people in the federal government to confine themselves within their constitutional powers; and we must not permit one department [branch] of the federal government to encroach on the powers of the other departments (p. 15-19). He then says,

“If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” (p.19)

So Washington is talking about what the people may come to see as defects in the Constitution:

If we want one branch of the federal government to have a power which the Constitution delegates to another branch, we should amend the Constitution to redistribute that power.10

If we want the federal government to have a power the Constitution doesn’t grant, we should amend the Constitution to delegate the additional power. No matter how desirable it is for the federal government to have the additional power, we must not permit it to exercise the power by usurpation.11

And this is what Alexander Hamilton, who along with James Madison assisted Washington in drafting his Farewell Address, 12 had previously said in Federalist No. 78: The representatives of the people [Congress] may not violate the Constitution even if a majority of their constituents want them to:

“…Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge, of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it, prior to such an act…” (5th para from the end)

Our Constitution isn’t defective, it’s ignored!

Our Constitution is a 5,000 year miracle. Our problem is everyone ignores it. The solution is to dust it off, read it, learn it, and enforce it. Downsize the federal government to its enumerated powers.

Demand Proof of what people say before you believe them.

If Americans would follow the example of the Bereans (Acts 17:11) and demand proof of the claims the convention lobby makes, they would spot the false claims and preserve our blessed Constitution. Judges & Juries require trial lawyers to prove their claims. Demand the same from lobbyists for a convention!

“George Mason demanded that this provision [the convention method of proposing amendments] be included in Article V because he correctly forecast the situation we face today. He predicted that Washington, D.C. would violate its constitutional limitations and the States would need to make adjustments to the constitutional text in order to rein in the abuse of power by the federal government.”

2 Amendments can’t “rein in” the fed. gov’t when it “violate[s] its constitutional limitations” because when it does so, it is ignoringthe existing limitationson its powers. Hello?

3Mason’s concern was that the new fed. gov’t wouldn’t agree to amendments needed to correct defects in the new Constitution:

Under the Articles of Confederation (our 1st Constitution), amendments had to be approved by the Continental Congress and all of the States (see ART. 13). So Art. V of the new Constitution dispensed with the requirement that Congress approve amendments.

Who should be able to propose amendments? Madison wanted Congress to propose all amendments, either on their own initiative or at the request of 2/3 of the States. But Mason said the States should be able to propose amendments without asking Congress because Congress might become oppressive and not permit the States to get the necessary amendments.

So the convention method was added. And it provided a way for States to propose amendments. But it also provided a convenient opportunity to get a new Constitution, since the delegates would have that transcendent right, recognized in our Declaration of Independence, to throw off one government and write a new constitution which creates a new government.

George Mason hated the new Constitution. He said on Aug. 31, 1787 that he “would sooner chop off his right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands”; and if it wasn’t changed to suit his views, he wanted another convention. Everybody knew that to get a new Constitution, you need a convention.

Madison and the other Framers went along with adding the convention method because they knew the people had the right to meet in convention and draft a new Constitution whether or not the convention method was added to Art. V [e.g., Madison’s letter of Nov. 2, 1788 to Turberville p. 299 at 2.]; and they couldn’t stop People in the future from doing what they had just done. So Madison, Hamilton & John Jay promptly started warning of the dangers of another convention: see the Brilliant Men handout.

4 Here’s an illustration of what States soon saw as a defect in our Constitution: Art. III, §2, cl. 1 delegated to federal courts the power to hear cases “between a State and Citizens of another State”. But when a citizen of South Carolina sued the State of Georgia, the States were outraged! See Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793). So the 11th Amendment was ratified to take away from federal courts the power to hear such cases.

5 The Constitution drafted at the federal convention of 1787 delegates only a tiny handful of powers to the fed. gov’t. See this chart.

6 Madison continues, “… according to a process applicable by the States.” Madison always said that when States want amendments, they should ask their congressional delegation to propose them. E.g., Madison’s letter of Nov. 2, 1788 to Turberville (p. 299 at 2.).

8 The Tariff Act of 1828 violated our Founding Principle (2nd para of the Declaration of Independence) that the purpose of government is to secure the rights God gave us. God never gave us the right to be free of competition in business.

9 In the very next paragraph, Madison says that when there is a pattern of usurpations and abuses, we must step outside of the Constitution and resort to the original right of self-defense: resistance, i.e., nullification or revolution (p. 398).

10 E.g., Art. I, §8, cl. 11 delegates to Congress the power to declare war. But if we want the President to have that power, we should amend the Constitution to delegate that power to the President. We must not permit the President to exercise that power by usurpation!

11 If we wanted the fed. gov’t to exercise power over labor unions, wages & hours, safety standards, food & drugs, manufacturing standards, agriculture, energy, housing, transportation, education, medical care, the environment, etc., etc., etc., we should have amended the Constitution to delegate those powers to the fed. gov’t.But we ignored Washington’s advice, and permitted the fed. gov’t to exercise those powers by usurpation.

12 The Introduction to the Farewell Address (p. 3) says that George Washington composed it with the assistance of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

Attorney Arthur Schulcz, who fought Navy bias against evangelical Christians, examines Supreme Court nominee Judge Kavanaugh’s bias in cases that have come before him and how he defers to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. “He protected Catholics against a clearly illegal system” of promoting chaplains in the Navy, Schulcz explains. In doing so, he adds, Kavanaugh’s rulings have violated the constitutional prohibition on the establishment of a state religion. Yet, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill don’t want to touch the issue, in the same way they ignore Kavanaugh’s role in the ultimate Clinton cover-up – the murder of Clinton White House lawyer Vincent Foster.

This morning while glancing over Facebook with its variety of politically charged events, menu items for the home grillers, birthday wishes for friends and the never-ending photographs of cute kittens and puppies…a poster of Kermit the Frog got my attention. That’s right, Kermit gazing out a window in deep thought got me to chuckle.

“Sometimes I wonder…What Happened To The People Who Asked Me For Directions”

I was immediately reminded of when I was a police officer working in downtown Houston. An English fellow approached and asked, in an overpowering British accent, “Officer, could you direct me to Milam Street?”, except instead of it sounding as we pronounce it, My-lam (as in lamb with a silent ‘b’), he asked for Mill-um Street.

I hesitated, momentarily, as the sound of his British accent brought a smile to my face. It gave me a chance to properly respond in such a way as to be pleasing to his own ears.

“That’s easy, just go one street past Smythe and you’re there”. We don’t actually have a Smythe Street in Houston; we call it Smith Street. You can see that being a police officer caused no end of challenges to my supervisors.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! — Walter Scott

Overview

2018 proved to be a horrible legislative year for the convention lobby. It measures its success by the number of State Legislatures it cajoles into passing applications[1] asking Congress to call a constitutional convention (con-con) pursuant to Article V of the US Constitution.

Fear of a “runaway” convention is the biggest obstacle to state legislators’ voting for Article V convention applications. So, in order to get their votes, the convention lobby misled legislators into believing convention Delegates can’t run away and propose “unauthorized” amendments or rewrite our Constitution. They said the convention will be controlled from start to finish by the very legislators whose votes they needed!

Thus, the con-con lobby contrived the false narrative that Congress can’t call a convention until it receives similar or identical applications from 34 states (two-thirds); that the Delegates would be limited to the subject/s listed on the state applications; and that an Article V convention is different than a “constitutional convention,” where our Constitution can be replaced.

To bolster these false claims, front groups for the globalist agenda have been pushing a number of applications on different subjects, as if each special interest group were applying for its own convention, e.g. to propose a balanced budget amendment (BBA); congressional term limits; overturning Citizens United, etc. State legislators, for the most part, believed what the convention lobby told them and voted for their state’s application when they agreed with the subject cited in the application.

I had not intended to weigh in on this debate as I have been focusing more on geopolitical issues. But I saw a piece go by from Paula Bolyard over at the Washington Post and I just had to write on it. Paula is also the supervising editor at PJ Media. That is a media source I really respect and that I visit every single day. You should too. Recently, Paula wrote an article at PJ Media that President Trump quoted: “96 Percent of Google Search Results for ‘Trump’ News Are from Liberal Media Outlets.” After that, she found herself in a media maelstrom that I would not wish on anyone.

Trump’s tweet said this, “Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. “Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal?’” Trump also added that “96% of results on ‘Trump News’ are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good.” He’s got a point and is right on this issue.

I’m probably not going to make anyone happy with this article, but this is how I see the situation. President Trump is upset that he is being censored by social media sites. So are most Americans. Many conservatives have been shadow banned, censored and fiscally destroyed by these tech giants. I have little to no sympathy for these tech outfits and I absolutely understand and agree with the way Trump feels. Except… when it comes to calling for regulation of social media sites. That is a very bad move constitutionally and it should give all Americans pause for thought on it. You can see Paula’s response to the call for regulating social media here. I absolutely agree with her and she is an impressive writer.

….results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!

We all saw this coming. It’s just a smidge more fascistic than I even imagined. What would you do if you owned a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip after the Vegas shooting to increase security? Why, of course… you’d perform surprise security checks on the most paranoid group that visits there – DEF CON. Caesar’s Palace in their stupidity has allegedly implemented a practice where hotel security, using keys to the rooms there, are doing random security checks where they enter the rooms without knocking and seize items from the rooms. And if Caesar’s Palace is doing it, the rest of the hotels on the Strip won’t be far behind. Any highrise hotel will fall in line. You probably don’t have to worry about Best Westerns or Holiday Inns… yet.

These policies were evidently crafted after last October’s mass shooting spree by Stephen Paddock who fired more than 1,100 rounds from the Mandalay Bay hotel at an outdoor country music festival in October of 2017, killing 58 people and injuring 851. Police never found the motive or solved the case, but closed it anyway. Now, jack-booted thug tactics are being used against hotel guests. I bet Airbnb bookings will increase as people shun the Strip hotels over this. I figured they would install metal detectors, but I never dreamed that security would just burst unannounced into guests’ rooms like this.

If you are not familiar with DEF CON, it is one of the world’s largest hacker conventions, held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the first DEF CON taking place in June 1993. Many of the attendees at DEF CON include computer security professionals, journalists, lawyers, federal government employees, security researchers, students, and hackers with a general interest in software, computer architecture, phone phreaking, hardware modification, and anything else that can be “hacked.” These are not people that you get your fascism on with lightly.